Introduction

On a normal afternoon you go through your normal routine of driving through the McDonald's drive through to take advantage of the dollar menu. "I need a cheeseburger, an order of fries, and a coke, please," is the order you call from your car and the total is only $3.37. You pull around to the window and hand the clerk your bank card as usual, but today, she hands it right back to you and says, "I'm sorry, but your card was declined due to insufficient funds." Of course, your reaction is one of shock and you begin to explain that there is no possible way that can be right since only yesterday you had over $1000.00 in your bank account.

You might be asking right now, how could this happen. The explanation —identity theft. Through some method, a criminal has acquired your personal information and has used it to deplete your bank account. Hopefully, this will never happen to you, but in today's society it happens to a very large number of people.

In this lesson, you will learn what identity theft involves and the best methods of preventing it.

Lesson Objectives

Following successful completion of this lesson, students will be able to...

  • Identify ways used to steal personal information and determine ways to avoid identity theft

Enduring Understandings

  • It is important to protect your personal information to prevent identity theft.

The above objectives correspond with the Alabama Course of Study: Business Technology Applications standards: 23

This lesson incorporates the following Literacy Standards: R1, R2, R3, R4, R5, R6, R10, W1, W2, W3, W4, W5, and W6